Long-term sex offenders at Peterhead prison have been allowed out into the community as part of a supervised work party for the first time, it has emerged.

It was revealed yesterday that two sex offenders, supervised by only one warder, were allowed out of the Victorian jail - which houses some of Scotland's worst offenders - under a training-for-freedom initiative to work just yards from parents and young children playing at Peterhead's Lido beach.